My head is swimming...

[subseastu]

Hi all
Well I've finally ordered my J3 and its sat at home waiting for me to return to the uk. I know this has most probably been done here before but my head is swimming from trying to pick the information out of various threads.

So my questions are:

• The best program for ripping CD's? I need a fairly simple program to be honest being a bit of a duffer with computers. My understanding is "exact audio copy" and "Dp poweramp" seem to be the favorites. Am I right in saying that dppoweramp can include album art in the file when you burn a CD so there is no need to use something like squeexbox or mp3tag
• Is FLAC the best format to to use to convert CD's to? How big is the average album file when converted?
• I'm going to buy a 64Gb micro SDXC card with SD adaptor, do I need to use USB SDXC reader or can I just use the slot in my laptop and use the GUIformat program to format it to FAT32?

That about covers my questions for now, thank you.

[mutescream]

Originally Posted by subseastu

Is FLAC the best format to to use to convert CD's to? How big is the average album file when converted?

Flac is the best, if you plan to be able to make MP3 files later of varying bitrates, or are heavily concerned with fidelity. That said, odds favor that you will not be able to tell the difference honestly between a well ripped V0 file and a FLAC (although some music tracks seem to not like being ripped to MP3 and will have audio artifacts, if ripped to Mp3), listening through headphones.

Where you might be able to hear a difference is if you have a nice and high powered sound system, and play your music through speakers (and have good enough speakers that go beyond human hearing at the top and bottom of the sound spectrum). The only reason for that, is those frequencies can react to your listening room and the resulting harmonics reflected can add more to the "live performance feeling".

Expect the average FLAC album to be 400-500MB.

I'm going to buy a 64Gb micro SDXC card with SD adaptor, do I need to use USB SDXC reader or can I just use the slot in my laptop and use the GUIformat program to format it to FAT32?

Use the reader; although I haven't bought my card and reader myself (yet), I've read of nothing but heartache from people that have tried to do this with anything other than an external reader. I don't know why, but I've seen plenty of evidence that this is the case, and see no logical reason to fight it (and likely deal with annoyance that can be prevented with a couple dollars spent).

[DSperber]

Originally Posted by subseastu

So my questions are:

• The best program for ripping CD's? I need a fairly simple program to be honest being a bit of a duffer with computers. My understanding is "exact audio copy" and "Dp poweramp" seem to be the favorites. Am I right in saying that dppoweramp can include album art in the file when you burn a CD so there is no need to use something like squeexbox or mp3tag

My own preference is Audiograbber. Easy to use, fully featured, honestly everything you'll want in a ripper/encoder-invoker/tagger.

Supports encoding to MP3 (e.g. via LAME) and FLAC (e.g. via FLAC), invoked as "external encoders" passing along your own command line parameters. ID3 tagging is done by Audiograbber for MP3, and FLAC tagging is done by FLAC itself for FLAC through the tag parameters automatically added by Audiograbber in the command line parameters.

I'll be glad to direct you to some online threads where complete instructions (with pictures) are posted about Audiograbber and its use.

Is FLAC the best format to to use to convert CD's to? How big is the average album file when converted?

Sure, if you want bit-perfect duplicate sound equivalent to playing the original WAV/CD. You can reproduce the original WAV from the FLAC, as you know. Bit-perfect re-compress yielding a FLAC file that's typically between 40-60% the size of the original WAV/CD track.

In contrast, highest-quality VBR MP3 (i.e. -V0 -ms) output from LAME is typically about 1/4 - 1/3 the size of the corresponding FLAC file. Many people say they are "indistinguishable" (and even from the original WAV), but MP3 is "lossy" and you will never be able to recreate the original WAV from it. In contrast, FLAC <--> WAV.

Both MP3 (from LAME) and FLAC (from FLAC) typically take just 5-15 seconds to encode a typical CD track when invoked from Audiograbber.

I'm going to buy a 64Gb micro SDXC card with SD adaptor, do I need to use USB SDXC reader or can I just use the slot in my laptop and use the GUIformat program to format it to FAT32?

My experience is that you should simply get a USB SDXC reader (they're very inexpensive) and use it. That will give you 100% reliable and fast results.

Can't say you'll have equivalent success with the SD slot in your laptop, without your trying it out.

You should have a clue if things are working properly or not in the laptop if the FAT32 64GB card shows up in DISKMGMT only as 30GB, and you should not attempt to write to the card if so. When viewed through the external SDXC reader it will show as 60GB, and you will have success writing to the card.

I say just get an external USB card reader and be done with all further thought about it.

[DSperber]

Originally Posted by subseastu

Is FLAC the best format to to use to convert CD's to?

There's no law that says you can't build your music collection containing a mixture of both FLAC (e.g. for your "favorite favorites", for which maximum fidelity is of utmost importance and file size is irrelevant) and MP3 (for "the rest").

While FLAC is FLAC (no matter the compression you use for FLAC, at the benefit of somewhat smaller files at the cost of somewhat slower time to create) and will always sound identical to the original WAV/CD, MP3 is different. MP3 is "lossy" and depending on your own personal criteria (file size vs. sound quality) an MP3 produced from the very same WAV/CD can vary in size.

And there's of course no reason you have to convert EVERY track from your CD's. You can be selective, and only produce FLAC or MP3 for one or more selected files from a CD depending on your own feelings.

Sure, it takes longer to listen and decide what you want to do than simply push some "do it all" button, but the results will most likely be what you really wanted to achieve. You won't skip tracks at playback because you don't like them, because you won't have an MP3 or FLAC file if you didn't "like" a song.

And you can decide whether FLAC for everything, or MP3 for everything, or a mix, will satisfy your needs. The number of files in your music colleciton will also be a factor, since the J3 supports a maximum of 8000 music files on internal storage, and another 8000 music files on external storage. Those are the number limits you have to be constrained to.

[takhama]

Hi, the best ripping soft is EAC (Exact Audio Copy).

If you want MP3, then get the last LAME dll at http://www.rarewares.org
This is the best mp3 encoder that exists.
Extract lame.exe + lame_enc.dll in EAC directory.

Then in EAC, in compression options:

- Enable Use external program for compression
- Give the path of the lame.exe
-additionnal command options - enter:
-b320 -h -mj -q0 --ta "%artist%" --tt "%title%" --tl "%albumtitle%" --tg "%genre%" --tn "%tracknr%" %source% %dest%

Disable everything in Comment and ID3 Tag tabs.

You'll have the best mp3 encoding possible.
Impossible to make the difference with a CD in a true blind test

[DSperber]

Originally Posted by takhama

-b320 -h -mj -q0

I'm not trying to get into a discussion regarding LAME encoding options, but you should mention that what you've suggested is going to produce 320kbps CBR results. True, probably can't get "better" than that... but it also produces THE LARGEST POSSIBLE MP3 FILES ONE CAN PRODUCE. Also, this produces "joint stereo" as opposed to "simple L/R stereo in all frames" (I don't know if the difference can actually be heard).

For indistinguishable and SMALLER file size results, the highly recommended alternative is to produce a VBR form MP3 file, not a CBR form MP3 file. This allows LAME itself to decide what bitrate is needed at each point in the track, and optimize the result according to your other optional command-line parameters. Also, -ms could be specified for "simple L/R stereo in all frames".

Hence my suggestion for "-V0 -ms", to force "highest quality VBR", which will be indistinguishable from -b320 (i.e. 320kbps CBR) and smaller.

Of course again, all MP3 is by definition "lossy" and you cannot recreate the original WAV/CD track from it. Only using FLAC (lossless) can you have reduced file size (though certainly 2-4 times larger than MP3) while at the same time retaining the ability to recreate the original WAV if you wanted to (e.g. to build a normal playable audio CD from your FLAC files) with perfect equivalence to the original.

[takhama]

I know, but I want to produce the best mp3 possible, nevermind the size.
Size is about 150Mo for a CD so it is reasonnable or me.
I don't like the idea of a "variable" bit rate, and also some player are unable to read VBR.

For Joint Stereo, it takes less size than simple stereo and difference can not be heard.

[subseastu]

Thanks for the replies folks (though some of the more techincal ones have gone straight over my head!)

So if we're brutaly honest if you burn CD's for use purely on a portable player with IEM's then there would be no real world difference between FLAc and a 320 rip mp3? This would mean on average I could maintain 2 to 4 times more music on my hard drive in the same space? so it looks like the suggestion of using audiograbber could be the best "one stop shop" solution. I take it this programme gets album art etc?

I'm not sure what this means to be honest "highest-quality VBR MP3 (i.e. -V0 -ms)" Can you explain what VBR, -V0 and -ms is please.

Thanks again everyone for your advice

[mutescream]

CBR is "constant bit rate", and creates files that are the same bitrate throughout. VBR is "variable bit rate", it has a preset ceiling, but will drop lower (if the recording doesn't need as much), and basically works on demand for how much of a bitrate the recording needs. VBR uses significantly less space than a comparable CBR recording.

While V0 is the best VBR you can use, I honestly doubt that most people could tell the difference between a V0 and a V2 in a blind test, or a 256 and a 320 CBR.

[subseastu]

So is there a difference in SQ between CBR and VBR if the bit rate varies?

[takhama]

Hello, it depends on your settings: If you set a VBR quality, you can tell the minimum quality and the best quality. If you set 192 as the minimum quality, I don't think the bitrate variation will be audible.
The encoder will vary in this range regarding the quantity of information to encode: poor information => lower bitrate, rich information => best bitrate
Personnaly, I don't like the idea of a variable quality, but it is just my own opinion and it is more a philosophical view

Generally speaking it is said that from 256kbps, human ear can't make the difference with a CD. That's what TRUE blindtests gives as results
If you choose mp3, the only advice I give you is to use LAME encoder.

What you can do is tests: take a song or a part of a song you know very well and encode it:
- at 320 CBR
- at 256 CBR
- VBR from 192 to 320
- Flac

Then put your headphones on and ask somebody to randomly play these 4 songs (without letting you kow wich one is playing of course), and to note your answers.
You'll see if you ears can hear the difference
A true blind test like this is the only way to know

[DSperber]

Originally Posted by subseastu

so it looks like the suggestion of using audiograbber could be the best "one stop shop" solution. I take it this programme gets album art etc?

No, Audiograbber does not get album art. You must do that.

If you don't have a scanner and Photoshop or just don't want to be bothered producing your own high-quality album art images, the easiest way is to go to the Amazon site and search for the CD you're working with, as if you were preparing to buy it. You will almost certainly find it there.



Click on the item (or album art thumbnail) in the search results that match the CD you're looking for. Be careful if there are multiple similar listings, as they might be for audio cassette or vinyl or something other than the CD. Actually you're really just looking for the best album art for your CD, so you may look at several choices before deciding which one you want.

So, say I see that "Adele 21" CD that I'm looking for. I click on it.

On the upper-left of the page for that CD is a small album art image... which you do NOT want to download for yourself, because on that presentation it is small and generally poor quality. It's really just a thumbnail. The large high-quality user-uploaded album art images are discovered by clicking on the "see all N customer images" link under the thumbnail. This leads to the gallery of full-size album art that's been uploaded (by people like me, in this case of "Adele 21"!) because the person doing the scan is proud and wants to share it with others. This is now it's shared.



So, when you click on that "see all" link you'll then be presented with a small thumbnail "strip" gallery, and if you click on each thumbnail the full-size image will be presented below. Most high-quality posts are 500x500 in size (which the J3 does a beautiful job of resizing and displaying, assuming the 500x500 JPG was high quality).



After browsing all of the offerings, once you have your chosen full-size displayed you then right-click on that full-size image and select "save image as...".



And then you navigate through the "Save as..." dialog to your album folder in which the music files for that album live, and specify a file name of "cover.jpg" for the saved file (no matter what the pre-populated file name was from Amazon, you overtype and change it to "cover.jpg" for use on the J3 in that album folder). Of course this assumes you actually do have a physical "album folder" containing the music files for that album.



Click OK and you've got it. If you are not using physical album folders for your collection, then you can't use the "cover.jpg" approach for album art. In that case just put it somewhere else (e.g. an album art folder) with a unique name. Then you can imbed it into the tag of your music file with MP3Tag, if that's the way you want to go. I myself user physical album folders and single "cover.jpg" in each folder and no imbedded album art in any tag.

I'm assuming you're working with the master music collection on your PC, not the copy that's on the J3. Eventually you will copy folders/files from PC to J3, but you should of course be maintaining things on your PC's master collection. Copying stuff to the J3 is a separate activity.

Note that other Amazon users "vote" on the thumbnails, with a "like" number showing on the right side of the image when you click on the thumbnail in the strip gallery to produce the full-size image below. If there's a high "like" count that is kind of evidence that that particular image was selected by a large number of downloaders like yourself. In the case of this Adele "21" scan I did, it is BY FAR the "most liked" (and I'm particularly proud of it) with a 50 out of 55 count.

Anyway, downloading album art if a manual task that YOU do yourself... since you may search for these images on a variety of album art sites using an array of software tools. I simply use Amazon as my own source, and if I don't like what I see I do my own high-quality scan and tweak with Photoshop. Actually, of late I've taken to doing ALL of my album art myself.

For example:

[DSperber]

Originally Posted by subseastu

So is there a difference in SQ between CBR and VBR if the bit rate varies?

All of the discussion about SQ from MP3 is simply another way of talking about "well, it sounds like..." or "you can't tell the difference between..." or "even with a lower bitrate and smaller file size you cannot distinguish between...".

There are all comparisons of one of a multitude of variations of MP3 production, and whether or not your goal is to create the smallest MP3 you can produce that still "sounds pretty good" or "sounds just like the original WAV" (so why not go with the smaller MP3 and save file space).

I don't want to participate in that discussion. These are all ways of saying that the "lossy" MP3 sounds "almost just like" the original... which is actually the WAV/CD track itself. That's the holy grail, the original WAV/CD track. So why not just go with FLAC which is bit-for-bit identical sounding to the original WAV/CD and forget about it?

If file space is NOT a criteria (especially if you have a 96GB J3) and your music collection can be entirely contained on your J3 with some portion at least (if not all) being FLAC, i.e. WAV/CD original, then why not just produce FLAC if you want "absolutely best/original perfect sound"?

You can simply NEVER get better sound than the lossless FLAC file. Any lossy MP3 attempts to be good enough so as to be indistinguishable, but it's still lossy and you cannot ever get the original WAV/CD back form that MP3 if you wanted to. Yes, it may be indistinguishable by most people, but it's still NOT the bit-perfect copy of the original WAV/CD as FLAC is.

Also, because it is bit-for-bit equivalent, from the FLAC file you can always recreate the original WAV/CD track if you wanted to (which is easier than re-ripping it from the physical CD).

Again, my "final solution" is to have a mix in my collection. As I said previously, I have about 1100 FLAC files for those "favorite favorites" where I really want the original CD-quality sound, no questions asked. Then for my other 5600 music files I have highest-quality VBR MP3 which is "good enough" for me.

[subseastu]

Thanks again for the replies. I must admit when I first thought of getting rid of my stop gap ipod touch I knew I wanted the best pmp for audio out there and it was my intention to just go for lossless files to ensure I get the best possible experience and to make the best of my equipment. Everyone has made really good points here and I'm extremely grateful to all but I think I'm going to stick with ripping at lossless with FLAC. I'll know in my own mind then its the best I'm getting and I'll be happy (which means the wife will be hapy as I'll stop banging on about all of this!).

I also like the amazon idea, I never realised that this exsited for down loading the album art. Assuming that amazon doesn't have my particular album cover art scanned in by someone such as yourself then I asume that I just scan my own copy and size it at 500 x 500 do I?

Thanks DSperber for taking the time t put those screen shots and explination together.

[mutescream]

Mp3 tag can scan amazon for you, and find the album art itself... Which skips a step.